14 comments:

Traveling for four days and really missed reading the Death Watch journals here.Last night Jim Palmer made a surpassingly stupid comment that I sure hope doesn't catch on with the rest of the Moron Media, which was that the Red Sox "gambled at giving up offense for defense" and lost, hence the failed season. Crap, crap, crap. The team was right on pace to equal last year's run totals when the injuries and Tito's stubborness (insisting on batting a .320 OBA lead-off man instead of a .385 one) derailed the offense. The team had plenty of offense. The pitching sunk it.

I don't want to get into a fruitless chicken or egg discussion, but there's plenty of evidence that the Sox hitters 5 through 9 in the order were below league average. Once Crisp went lead-off (and who knows that didn't come from Theo), the offense was decidedly a 2-man crew. Then 1/2 left with Manny. Let's just say that in the end, the offense couldn't support the level of pitching the club was getting. Defense? If somebody in the FO still has a hard-on for Lugo and they let AGon get away, somebody is fucking nuts.

The league-average stuff is great for evaluating players...like right field...but there is an indisputable way of evaluating offenses: who scores the most runs. Right before the Yankee series the Sox were second behind the White Sox in a closely bunched group, on track for 900 runs. That's all. I'm not going to argue that by position, Tek, Youk, Gonzo, Trot and Crisp weren't below average: they were. But I checked the offense figures every week until mid-August when it was clear what was happening. This was an above average offense, below-average componanants notwithstanding.

And I'm a Gonzo fan: his offense is good enough if the offense is working as a whole, and his defense more than justifies his presence.

Red Sock: Oh, I remember it, but it went away by midseason because it was so stupid. Then Manny's knee acts up and he barely plays for almost two months, Papi loses two weeks with a heart problem, Youk, Loretta, Wily Mo and Lowell are hurt, and the offense understandably falls off the cliff. So they these fools come back AGAIN and say the offense decline was INTENTIONAL but the defense didn't make up for it? How can "professionals" be that stupid and live? Why should we have to read and listen to that crap? DOES JIM PALMER WEAR A TOUP OR NOT? ARRRRRRRGHHHHHH!!

And now, Sunday. All it's glory, staring us in the face. And the news that Roger, Miggy, Pettite and others were ALL bad boys. Or Grimsley is a great liar. Nothing substantiated, but when I heard this in the early morning hours of a grey Sunday, I went downstairs and went to the LA Times' website, and posted it. Breaking news on what day? The final day of the regular season! Scripted timing? Dunno...what do you think?

I am not conspiratorily-mided as a rule, but yes, I find the timing of the Grimsley accusations suspicious.Following a night in whicha critical game was lost by the Sox as the result of a rally in which two of the players named had a hand (Tejada and Gibbons), I am also reminded how much this stuff angers me. Grimsley's statement is alarming, and creates legitimate and serous doubts about the players named, especially since two of them, Tejada and Rocket, have been the subject of rumors to this effect for a long time. This falls far short of the slam-dunk mound of evidence against Barry Bonds, but it will also set up a needed acid test for those who have come after Barry with guns blazing: will they be as vociferous in their condemnation of a wildly admired (white) superstar like Clemens, and as quick to discount his similar late career achievements? Dan Duquette might have been right after all, you know, and Rocket may have had to resort to illegal means to jump-start his second wind in Toronto. If so, what then? If baseball finds itself having to exclude its all-time hits leader, #2 homerun hitter, and record-setters McGwire and Clemens from the Hall, its integrity will be permananetly scarred.And if they get in the Hall anyway? Ditto.